Champion of Champions 2017 – Riga Update

28th June 2017

Ryan Day’s breakthrough victory at the Kaspersky Riga Masters last weekend not only secured him his maiden ranking event title, but also puts him into contention for a place at this year’s Champion of Champions at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena.

But how will the full field be made up and what would have to happen for the Welshman to miss out?

Once again, qualification for the event will be determined by the winners of professional tournaments dating back to John Higgins’ victory at the event in 2016, events having been ordered in a specific line of priority.

Players currently qualified are set out below, numbered by qualification priority, not seeding:

Changes for 2017

Compared to last year’s final list there are a few changes of note to the order of qualification priority as follows:

The World Championship has moved from 10th to fourth on the list of priority, to reflect the status and prestige of the event

All Home Nations Series events have been grouped together from 15-18 on the list

Places have been allocated for both members of the winning World Cup team, as in 2015

Who is safe?

At the time of writing, 16 of the 26 counting events have been won by 12 individual players, who are all currently in line to secure a place at the Ricoh Arena in November. This leaves nine events remaining (two spots at the World Cup), through which players not yet qualified can still earn themselves a place at this year’s event.

In terms of who is definitely safe, everyone down to Gibraltar Open winner Shaun Murphy can already be certain of their places in Coventry, while Ryan Day and Anthony McGill must hope that there are a few more ‘repeat’ winners from the list above to be sure of their places. This is because there are still events to be played, that are higher on the order of priority for Champion of Champions qualification.

Of those still looking to secure their places, the most obvious are world number four Ding Junhui and 2015 Coventry winner Neil Robertson, both without silverware since last year’s Champion of Champions. Tenth ranked Mark Allen is also yet to qualify, as well as Kyren Wilson, Liang Wenbo, Ali Carter and Mark Williams who also complete the world’s top 16.

The next chance to earn a place will come at next week’s World Cup, with two spots up for grabs for the two-man winning team in Wuxi.